Americans React to Why Europe Is Insanely Well Designed
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- čas přidán 3. 06. 2024
- In this video, we check out why Europe is designed so much better than the United States! Come check out why and our opinion on the US train system, which one is better?
00:00 - Intro
00:55 - Reaction
15:44 - Outro
Link to reacted video:
• Why Europe Is Insanely...
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#americanreacts #europe #railway
Just for clarification - the European railway lines shown at the start of the video are only the main lines. We have way more railways than that. For example, just in Czechia, we have 117 towns/cities with over 10 thousand people and only ONE of the doesn't have a railway connection with regular passenger service.
very true, here it only shows 3 lines in my country only leading to Amsterdam. But every city has a railway station and a lot of towns between the citys also have a station.
They removed all domestic, regional, and local railroad lines.
It's like the maps of the road networks, 4:46. We have way more roads than that, but the only showed the international E Road Network. (EDIT: Actually, I checked again. They are showing even less than that.)
You are totally right about the Railways in the whole of Europe, I am British and I have used the channel tunnel to Belgium. When you get to main land Europe you can go to anywhere including small towns or into the mountains either on the main line or local lines. Which is far better and convenient for anyone on holiday, business, who is local or going on a journey through all of Europe by train plus it's environmentally friendly and you can see absolutely beautiful sights that you can't see by plane and car. I love living in Britain with the rest of Europe just a ride into and out of the channel tunnel. I would never live in America with it's ridiculously boring road system which I have been on. 💂♂️💂♂️🇬🇧🇬🇧🏴🏴💙💛🇺🇦🇺🇦
Same in the UK
Yep.
Town of 10k in Belgium. I often take the train from Ghent to my small town and then walked a mile home.
Or I took the buss, same deal.
Options are a good thing.
I often took the buss into the Ghent city center as well because driving there ain't pleasant and the buss is just reading a good book for an hour, there is no reason not to use it.
I can have a casual breakfast in London, get on the train, and just over two hours later be in central Paris, Amsterdam or Brussels for a spot of lunch. Love it.
no wonder, UK lunch sucks!
Well that depends on where, and what you choose to eat. If you wanna eat Greggs or McDonalds, that's up to you - there's plenty of excellent places to have lunch in London and the UK.@@Arltratlo
@@Arltratloyou can pry the beans on toast from my cold dead hands 😅
@@jabbra1837 keep them....
@@Arltratlo gladly 😎
Most cities in the UK have some sort of 'Park and Ride' scheme, where you bring your car to the edge of the city, park in a large designated carpark, and catch special buses to the city centre.
But not London.
Also, Many are restricted by time of day they can be used.
Common in Canada as well.
In my city (Padova, Italy) you have 2 hubs, one in the south and one in the north of the city, where you can park your car and hop on a tram that is scheduled every 6 minutes and takes you to the city center. The ticket is 3 euros for all the public transport in the city for all day, and the service is available from 5:40 am to 23:30 pm.
@@Moribax85 Sounds really good.
Netherlands aswell
Many European roads/towns were first designed and built before cars were invented
As well as American cities were. Only the American cities were bulldozed for the cars afterwards.
@@Vojtaniz01no, even a basic knowledge of history and city planning disproves your comment.😂
Cars were taken into account while planning the development, they were not bulldozed because of cars
@@Vojtaniz01 You know what he means.
2000 year old road system vs few centuries old road system
@@Vojtaniz01Yes, you just have to look at old pictures and films. Mass colonization of the USA was also only possible through migration. Even old European cities were car-centered until the 70s and 80s, until a change in thinking occurred. Making cities more livable for people.
@@paulhodgers For at least 80% of US cities he's totally right. Most US cities existed before the Germans invented the automobile.
It's not purely and only the public transportation.
Small example: When the US plans a new residential area, it means no stores, nothing commercial, purely residential.
Here in the Netherlands, a new urban area, you will see parts designated for stores and other necesities. (family doctors, schools etc)
I lived in many places in my country and never was further away from a grocery store than a 5 minute walk or bicycle ride.
Lowering the need to use a car helps a lot.
i got 4 discounters in a circle of 600m diameter around my house and i dont know how many doctors etc!
The city you asked for towards the end of the video is Venezia (Venice) in Italy. Easily recogniceable by the standalone bell tower (Campanile di San Marco).
This summer my son and girlfriend did a 12 day trip flying from Manchester to Copenhagen. Then by train to Berlin, Rome, Rimini on the Italian coast. Finally to Milan to catch a flight home. They spent a while in each stop. They bought a Eurorail ticket then used an app to book the train as they went along.
This system is good for tourists and young people. However, when you have a family and a normal life, car discrimination destroys your life.
I subscribe to an American city planner's channel, and one thing he mentions is that in America, when a developer wants to create a new development, there is actually a minimum number of parking spaces they have to include. In Europe, there's a maximum. And big companies like Walmart and Target will basically insist on building car parks for the once-a-year events like Black Friday or Thanksgiving rather than thinking about what the use is the majority of the time.
Yup.
My store has room for 2 cars here in Belgium.
Is it possible 4 people at the same time show up once every few weeks? Sure, there's a road, park there for a bit. It ain't some disaster.
When I was younger (before the UK left the EU), I just upped sticks from England and moved to Spain one day, I stayed for two years. I got a job, somewhere to live and was entitled to the same benefits (free healthcare, unemployment payments) as any Spaniard from day one. Lots of people used to do this. Unfortunately because of the brexit morons this can’t be done any more and the entry process is quite strict.
That rail map (as you guys correctly stated) is a very simplistic skeleton.
Each country has its own network map, which in pdf format, means that as you expand the map with your fingers, you get to see every single station on every single branch line in the entire country.
We have a very good one in UK (which recently has been further improved).
And the Irish have their own.
With regards to Europe - even better, but the only reservation I have is that I only have experience in downloading such maps in the respective language.
However, you could try English.
Finally, don't forget to check out Eurail (go-everywhere ticket for Americans).
You can't buy it once you're here.
I've just tried to do some quick research and seems he is right about there being more area for carparks than homes.
If the number 8 parking lots per car is accurate then it makes sense because there are pretty much as many cars as people in the US and I don't think the average person has 8 parking lots to live on (if only the footprint of the house is what counts).
For the hole parking outside the cities or towns we have a thing called park and ride, basically a big car park then a dedicated bus that takes you to the centre and it’s pretty cheap
UK train fares are through the roof at the moment, but train lines that were closed in the 50s are gradually being reopened. Many major cities have a metro or subway system, or trams or similar. If not, then they have decent bus services - and the top fare is generally capped at £2. That said, services in the countryside in some areas can be patchy.
Sorry to hear they're so expensive now.
The green on the Amtrak map is a connecting bus service that is reserved for customers connecting off of Amtrak's train services.
In Amsterdam there are Park & Ride facilities. You can park your car the whole day and get a return ticket on public transport for less than 10 euro's. Last time I used it, but that was before 2016 it was 5 euros.
The UK alone has 2,566 train stations
And every train is delayed/cancelled. I had to take an 80 pound taxi from Manchester to Liverpool last time I was there.
A metric f*ck load less than we had prior to the Beeching cuts.
@@joepiekl Yep, an Industrial dispute is currently on going.
What is the average Ontime percentage for US domestic Airlines? Mostly less than 80%.
The average passenger delay on long distance journeys in England in the current year, is 3 minutes.
You commented Prague twice in your video without knowing it :))) That subway station that you liked and the gothic cathedral... That's Prague Metro and the "Our lady of Tyn" church in the old town square.
And I agree.. We have an extensive public transport system.. city wide and around the clock which is integrated with regional and long routes... Trains, buses, trams, cable cars all cooperate making travel easy, frequent and most of all cheap. I did notice how difficult Mobility is in the US and Canada..., Train prices were beyond ridiculous and the speeds were painfully slow.
My recent Prague to Berlin train ride (4hrs) just costs 14USD and sometimes around 9USD with special offers
12:50 An HR person here: Yes, citizens of one EU country do not need a work visa to work in another EU country - they just accept the job, move and then register at the appropriate state institution of the host country. They don’t need permission, they just inform the authorities that they have moved there. (Exceptions to that are countries that have only recently joined the EU and are still within the transition period (few years) for the “right to move” to take effect. It is a bloody day and night difference in the volume of admin of employing a foreigner from another EU country or any other country in the world.
You were wondering about the aerial shot of the city at the end . It was Venice, Italy. Venice has vaporettos…public water buses…for public transportation.
Funnily enough, Hamburg in the north of Germany also has two boat lines in its public transport:
In summer* (or until the Alster becomes impassable) the Alster ships in the city center and all year round the HADAG ships, they connect Hamburg Landungsbrücken, Altona,"Teufelsbrück" with the other side of the Elbe = Finkenwerder; Blohm+Voss shipyard site; Airbus factory, and are often faster than bus and train;)
@@manub.3847 London has a River Bus boat service, that has services from Hampton Court (western suburbs) through the center to as far east as Tilbury, to do it all one does have to change boats in Westminster or the City. It has a public Cable Car (aerial) as well crossing the Thames.
For the trips to other countries requiring just a passport and comparing that to the experience from a US citizen, please do note that when trying to go from one to the other (where the other isn't your native region), you have to do a series of requesting permission to visit, answer some questions online, they do some background checks etc...where once you're in Europe you can just buy a ticket for a plane or train departing the same day and just hop over borders. That is the difference. There are also two different checks in an air port: one for European residents and one for people from outside the Union: it is a lot faster to pass through the line for locals because the check is so much quicker. They're obviously not lazier or deliberately slow, but they have to ask more questions, check your passport more thoroughly etc.
And all Britts are totally chocked that they now days need to stand in the long slow moving queue 😀
I used to work for Kansas City Southern Railroad (KCS) and it's the only north-south railway in the country. It merged with a railway in Mexico about 20 years ago and then, more recently, was purchased by a Canadian railway, so it is now Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway (CPKCR).
Hello Ethan and Angela. Interesting timing for some of these comments about ease of movement, since this is in the news for other reasons (just saying without taking sides).
The amount of car parks and also the size of the houses comes down to population density, here in Spain it is 240/sq mile and the US is 91/sq mile. The Netherlands and parts of the UK are much higher than Spain 1,100 and 720 respectively, so they HAVE to have better planning.
In London ULEZ only affects those driving the most polluting cars (only around 10% of cars are affected) and there’s a scrappage scheme that means those who wish to can upgrade their old car for a newer one that meets the criteria.
The city at 15:32 is Venice, Italy.
I have lived in Oslo for 23 years without owning a car or being able to drive. Because we save money on that we take a taxi occasionally if we need to transport something big, but other than that the public transport works brilliantly. We can also get most things brought to our doorstep, I can for instance now order groceries and have them delivers to my doorstep within half an hour. It's a little bit more expensive, but amazing when it's snowing outside and the whole family has the flu. We have a lot of electric cars and bikes also 😊
This system is good for tourists and young people. However, when you have a family and a normal life, car discrimination destroys your life.
You live like slaves in a concentration camp.
@@nnnnnn3647 Well, no. I have a four year old and a partner and we are doing perfectly well without a car still 😊 Anywhere else in Norway would be a lot worse though.
If you like this life, it's not my problem. The problem is that you want to change my life and imprison me at home without access to work, a doctor or a family.@@the_oslovian
Many towns and cities in the U.K., including the one I live in, have “Park ‘n’ Ride” schemes, whereby you park your car in a parking lot (with washrooms) just outside the settlement and your parking charge includes a day’s use of a bus between the parking lot and a circuitous route around the principal sites in the settlement.
I like your videos and just thought of some videos related to the subject of transportation in Europe which would maybe interest you. The CZcams titles are: "The fastest train in Europe will make you want to quit continental flights forever" and "Paris to Barcelona by 300km/h TGV Duplex high speed train"
In addition I think US zoning laws tend to militate against having mixed neighbourhoods, in the UK generally most people live within 10 minutes walk of a shop or shops. Having facilities local to where you live means there is less need to travel by car.
Everyone talking about the railroad map of Europe being just the main lines but I want to mention that the roads maps are also absolutely incomparable. The European one shows motorways. These are the highest level of roads the countries have and few American highways will qualify for a motorway in Europe. Everything about these roads is regulated for high speed - the maximum curves, the maximum inclination, the obligatory fences along the motorway, the vertical signalisation and so on. So yeah, the entire infrastructure in Europe is insanely dense and of high quality.
And don't forget the important benefit of a railway travel: time for yourself! If you drive, you drive (and listen to radio or audio books). If you travel by railroad, you can also read, write, sketch, design, solve relativity problems ;), watch movies or documentaries, etc. You can either be more productive or relax more than while driving.
Whooo nice to see the Welsh flag up!
I like to think of it this way in terms of movement.
Each state, within the US, is the equivalent of
Each country, within the EU
The "European Union" has the same idea behind the "United states", where each EU member country follows both their own laws, but also those set by the European Union that is voted on by representatives of their countries. The same way the US has states laws and federal laws.
We can freely move between spain/france etc just as easily as US citizens can go between two states.
the danish border have just been closed for years my friend..
schengen should give free passege to goods and people, but the rules also allow borders in some situations..
sweden also had borders not long ago..
i had to pay 200 € because i did not have a passport at the danish border one day when i was comming home to my country..
the cop would not take accept a valid drivers licens as a prove of my person (if i had crossed to border 1 meter, he would have had to accept it 🤣) so stupid
as a scandivian i also can travel in scandinavia without passport, we counld do that before eu.
but that was also not posible when sweden closed the border not long ago
so it is normally also posible to leave eu without a passport( norway is not a part of eu) if you are a scandinavian citizen
@@Hansen710 i was just getting to describe it in a way an America would understand. Of course they are not the same, but it gives them same context.
No European state has had to create a transit network serving half a continent. A number of European countries are smaller than some of our lakes.
@@michaeldowson6988As they say at the beginning of the video, the continental Europe (not just the EU) is bigger than the USA area.
But it isn't one political/electoral unit as the USA is.@@BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele
That point you made of the roads being really hard to navigate for you in Europe is something I've felt as well. And I'm European living in Europe. Especially cities are terrible.
However, I live in Belgium. We might be an outlier, as our road system is notoriously bad, we have constant road works, and we get a ton of international traffic in a very small area.
Oh, and the public transport here also isn't great.
probably cause of the reasons you mentioned here in the netherlands i feel like it ain't hard to navigate as long as you got gps with flitsmeister just some busy hours were traffic is slower
As a Belgian that has been to the US several times and all over the states, I can tell you that living next to the Netherlands made me think "Yeah, our Belgian roads could do with some serious improvement" and the trips to the US has made me continue the thought "But at least we're not THAT bad."
Hey,
I'm from Belgium too and our public transport is great compare to the US.
It is true that it's often late and we have to work around the strikes.
We like to complain about it but we really can go everywhere with it and even in small town there is a train station with at least a train every hour.
I guess it always depends on what you compare it to.
@@edwinbottero5230 Yeah, based on what I've heard about the US, it's definitely better. And I haven't really tried public transport in any other country, so I don't really have anything to compare it to.
In EU there's a Shengen area which isn't 1:1 EU area as joining has additional requirements and some non EU countries like Switzerland are in - but it basically looks like interstate borders in the USA - you have a big sing with the country's name and speed limits and that's it, you aren't even monitored. (Although any country can restore checkpoints at any time if it's needed). What's different than US is that there's no single "federal" jurisdiction - when you cross open border, you change 100% jurisdiction and most of the time official language as well. Your phone even switches to roaming automatically (thankfully it's cheap)
A lot of cities have pedestrianised the town centre roads, when they introduced it in Chester, the shops complained, saying it would affect their buisness, in reality it didn't, people in cars don't buy anything, people walking past do.
..U can buy a Eurorail ticket and travel to over 33 000 destinations one the same ticket,
..and u usually get a discunt at museeums and temporary bag storage...
Funny you mentioned the Gothic cathedral - it's Goth Weekend in Whitby (where I live) this weekend 👍
O thats so cool! Did you go?
@@midwestamericans3806 no not this time I've seen lots of pics of the visitors their costumes are amazing - I usually have a walk into town just to mingle but the weather has been really cold this week 🙄 as usual for October 🙄
Gas is cheaper in the US as the federal government makes it so. Taxes on car fuel are more in Europe as all the countries subscribe more exactly to laws with regards the environment and "green" issues. America couldn't give two hoots about that and have consistently not signed or re-negotiated the terms of all of these things. I like that car fuel is cheaper in the US, but I wouldn't move there.
There is no train line from: Anglesey to Dublin it’s a ferry port and ferry port is also in Pembrokeshire goes to Dublin
Thanks for flying the flag (The Welsh one of course :-) ) As has been said the European map is just the express network - the rail net work is much larger. Within my city of Cardiff we have something like 17 local stations. Investment is going in to create faster links locally within south east Wales and an expansion in the number of stations.
Yea I like the Welsh flag, it's cool.
but only if Labour becomes the next government,
the Tories will cut spending to give the money to their donors!
Hello from Switzerland, well, I think the automotive industry is only part of the reason, the other could be that you don't have to spend a lot of money on infrastructure and maintenance. The train, in particular, if you operate it at a serious and intensive level and sometimes have difficult conditions (mountains, etc.) costs a lot, especially if you want it to be efficient and punctual. Despite our excellent rail infrastructure, you can get anywhere, so to speak, by both train and car, although the public transport network also includes mountain railways and ships. From this perspective, the question remains where your tax money goes, at least not enough on roads and certainly not on public transport.
70 passengers just have to go on a normal bus, our articulated buses have a total of 132 seats and standing places (mixed), while the new double-articulated buses have 206 seats and standing places, of course, here in little Switzerland.
i love you think parking makes more room if it´s in a higher building..
many places parking spaces are underground, and some citys even have parking and roads under the whole city center...
tax is not only on cars, road toll is very normal in europe.
many places you need to buy a sticker to drive a area or a road..
so its not just the cars and gasolin that is expensive
we have alot of emty buses driving around on the countryside in europe, so everyone can get home..
in places where few people live, im not sure it is less poluting
Ride the rails in europe -there is a railpass for europe - research interrail
Even pretty cheap as you can upgrade single passages to sleeper trains and save on hotels.
Just for clarification - the railway situation is true in Central Europe, but countries like Portugal, Spain, Finland, Estonia, Latvia basically form railway islands.
While Spain had very good high speed railways within the country, and Finland has good long distance railways, these are the exception in this group. All the other countries have very poor railway infrastructure with basically no connection to other countries.
Well France and Italy, and Germany also have good and relatively fast connection, and there are plans and projects to further the connectivity in Swizerland and in the east. And even it is not super high speed, even in the poorest countries like Romania and Bulgaria, they rebuild the main railways to allow speeds up to 200 km/h, while previously it was only 130 and at some points even 93 km/h. That's doubling the speed, and also doubling the tracks so trains don't have to stop and wait ...
Well France and Italy, and Germany also have good and relatively fast connection, and there are plans and projects to further the connectivity in Swizerland and in the east. And even it is not super high speed, even in the poorest countries like Romania and Bulgaria, they rebuild the main railways to allow speeds up to 200 km/h, while previously it was only 130 and at some points even 93 km/h. That's doubling the speed, and also doubling the tracks so trains don't have to stop and wait ...
Btw the map of the track network ends on the border of the former Soviet Union, but in the East where the spaces are even far bigger than in the States the trains work very well - you can go almost everywhere by train, for peanuts, if you want.
For some reason watching american people react to our society was extremely entertaining.
Although it is worth mentioning that public transportation here in europe isn't as flawless as the video might proport, often times we encounter countless problems expecially speaking about trains.
Thats very true here in Italy where i live, with extreme train delays being a literal meme across the country.
If you wanna see some cool trains, go to speak to the japanese folks.
The main reason why Europe has a good network of main line railways is because 19th century governments wanted to be able to move large numbers of troops around quickly to fight each other. In order to avoid a rail borne invasion Russia chose a different gauge. They then discovered it was a problem when they wanted to invade someone (again)!
Same goes for the highway system in the US of A besides the fact that it was in the 20th century.
They used trains, of course, but that wasn't the reason for it. The same applies to the German highway system, which the USA copied.
At 15:33 "what city is this": it's Venice, in Italy!
Amsterdam to Paris for $30? Maybe if you book a month in advance. Last minute or tomorrow will likely be between $60 and $120. But even at 60 it's still an option and relatively competitive to car ownership and fuel prices.
Just a quick note to say that the European heighway network map vastly underestimate the real network. For instance not even of a tenth of the network is shown...
The most shocking statistic was the car parks in America taking up way more space than housing!! I'm curious, do you have to pay for parking much in the US, I get the feeling you don't. We pretty much have to pay all the time for parking in the UK, unless it's attached to a shop you're visiting (usually a 2-hour limit) or if it's residential and is far enough out of the centre of the town/city and isn't restricted to residential permits only. And don't get me started on the f-ing stupidity of Brexit taking away all those wonderful freedoms he was talking about!!!!
My uncle has really poor eyesight to the point he can't drive. He would easily be able to afford a car if he could. Public transport is not just about costs, it's about accessibility for all. The public transport here isn't fantastic but at least it's an alternative
I live in Vienna, don't own a car and spend less than a Euro per day (on average) on a domestic public transport ticket for the whole Viennese area. Vienna for some years is regularly attributed the title of the most lifeworthy city and the city with the best local public transport system (but also to be the unfriendliest city in the same vein) by independent surveys. If I want to take the train to an other country that's usually like 20 to 50 Euro, depending on the target destination and comfort level I chose. I have a doctor, pharmacy, 3 supermarkets, an underground, 2 train and 2 bus connections and a local market in less than 5 minutes walking distance from my home, spend like roughly 10% of my monthly net income on rent and using public means of transport would take like 30 minutes to the city center and/or my workplace. While Vienna is still car-heavy, more and more bicycle lanes appear and even certain times and restrictions to enter some parts of the city center for cars or heavy traffic exist.
I think that your zoning laws in the US, makes it harder to design a better transit system. There are a couple videos out there explaining why.
Within EU countries you do not even need a passport, just your national ID card, that includes also a EU wide health insurance that covers every EU citizen in case of illness during those 3 months.
See if you can find out about the Beeching Railway cuts of the 1960s?
Parking in European city's is also expensive, in the Dutch city Rotterdam you pay €4,50 an hour in the centre so I take public transport, and I cycle a lot. Greetings from the Netherlands
15:33 its venice :D
schengen zone means, there is NO control on borders, you move from one to another conytry and noboby checks on you. But you should have a passport or id just like normally in your own country (id).
Loving the Welsh flag behind you two. Where I live you can catch a bus, which one comes every 30 minutes, and can travel to anywhere in the county for £2….. brilliant
welsh flag or St George flag, your place is owned by the English!
or do you hate the EU, too?
We have a transport network that works well and is free for students and people over 65. No need to take cars to city centers
IDK about parking area being bigger than residential, but American malls do look ridiculous - they're basically a huge parking lots with a tiny little mall in the middle (not so tiny really)
To travel n Europe between member states you only need your ID (That's just for plane travel, as there are no border controls on roads so you just drive like you will do between US state lines), the only exception is Ireland because they are connected without borders to Northern Ireland which is not EU anymore.
You should react to the European Union explained!
But for the practical daily use its not common - very expensive (price and time)
that city was Venice, Italy
Good luck catching a train from Ireland to Wales.
It’s different for European to travel inside EU. (Compared to foreigners inside EU) It’s literally like traveling inside the same country! (For US citizen it would remind them probably traveling through their own union if states)
Car -> just drive (whoops I crossed the border, I didn’t even notice)
Train -> just buy a ticket
✈️ -> go to preferential line (everything goes faster)
The passport or ID just remains in the pocket/purse for the sake of rare special case
(like policemen wants to identify me for some unrelated legal reason or I need to identify myself when going to office or boarding plane)
the carbon footprint part is wrong, the US citizen footprint is so much higher primarily because of air conditioning, then transport
Europeans don’t need a passport to travel from one country to another within the EU, just an ID card. You can also relocate to another country without visa, you just simply need to register at the city/village where you’re planning to move for living and that’s it.
EU citizen can travel and migrate freely in the EU. You need to have an ID or a passport (driving license is not enough but beside UK having ID is mandatory) but no one will ask you to show one. If you are staying in one country for more than a couple of months (the actual number depends on a country) you just need to register your stay so they can add you to the tax and social systems. The law has to be the same for all EU citizens. If German highways are free they have to be free for all. They can restrict it so they are free for every EU person living in Germany but not to free only for Germans. Even local elections are open for every EU citizen - a person from Spain can vote and run for a local office in France if they live there. It does not apply to general elections. Country wide elections (parlament, president, etc.) are for citizens of that country only.
A small error in the video, if you are an EU citizen, you can work, rest and play in any EU country for as long as you want, not 3 months as the video said.
I think the confusion might be for none EU citizens, which if I'm not mistaken, can stay for 3 months in the EU.
Think of the EU a bit like the US and the countries in the EU like US states, in both, you've got freedom of movement and can stay in any of the members and states as long as you want.
As for the passport thing, if I'm not mistaken, I think Schengen zone countries don't need a passport, which covers most EU countries, you basically just travel as like you would in your own country with no restrictions, but none Schengen countries, I think you need a passport, I think that was the case for the UK when it was in the EU.
12:45 Inside Schengen they don't even check who you are.
As EU citizens we can not only travel to other EU countries, we can also live and work there. I have worked an lived in Poland for 6 and a half years and I am now almost a year in Greece.
Where i live, the Walmart parking lot is always full.
I can't even remember the last time I filled up for 1,50€/l, also I sold my car 5 years ago (so prob. never) ^^
If you live in London and are 60 years of age or older all public transport is free
Here in Europe we can travel between other contries of the EU like you can travel between US states. I think the confusion comes from the fact that in the US you don't have an ID card like we have here. Everyone in the EU has a "Citizen card" (how it's named here in Portugal) all your life, beeing updated every five years or so. You don't have to pay for a passport or even be checked... Moreover... If you're in Portugal you can literaly walk to Spain or drive without any control , the Citizen Card is required when you want to travel between countries using public transport.
There are exceptions of course. I said EU to simplify but it's the "Schengen space" that works like this, Schengen beeing an agreement between most of the EU members.
Just to complicate a bit, the Schengen space is also composed by countries that are in Europe but not in the European Union.
To travel through different countries, you only need identification, except for United Kingdom, since Brexit, There are no borders between the various countries.
He was wrong, within the Schengen area, you don’t need a passport or ID card. You can just cross the border in most cases.
Yes but if you go to live and lend a home etc for 3 months you need your ID same a natural of that area. You need identify yourself
The Schengen Accord is the worst thing ever "invented" as the problems in most parts of Europe with regards illegal immigration shows.
@@simonsaunders8147 It may be for you. I have family and friends in all of Europe and love to travel and go to events in other countries both for work and for myself.
I don't want to be forced to be jailed in the exact barriers of my country when there are so many markets there in the rest of the union.
@@simonsaunders8147 So one bad feature negates all other positive ones? K
@@simonsaunders8147EU and Schengen are the best ideas in Europe.
Dw i'n hoffi y'r Y Ddraig Goch yn yr cefndir (I like the Welsh flag (The Red Dragon) in the background) Would love to know how disabled Americans get arround like my daughter for example she is blind so carn't drive a car, my oldest son has developmental issues and also will probably never drive or my wife used to suffer with fits so she couldn't drive then, in America are people like this just left alone? Here in the uk even in my village of 30 people we have a bus stop, at secondary school most children use the public transport network to get to school and at my older children's specal school they teach them how to use public transport to get around on there own
The big difference is they you don’t have to show any paspoort when you enter. There arm close to no border checkpoints within the eu.
1 bus every 20 minutes carries far fewer passengers than 1 car every 2 seconds.
Let me give you an idea to just how expensive it is to own a car in the UK (and we are not the dearest!) new car price £35000($42942.93-this not electric)inc. car tax 20% then road tax to use the car on the road,(per year) which varies for the amount of emissions the car produces, so £130($160) upto £2500.($3068) Then there's the gasoline or diesel +70% TAX oh gas prices are high. equivalent $7.80 per us gallon. now you understand why so many cars in Europe are small and why we dont have high emissions. Oh because electric cars wont want gas that means government wont get the 70% tax. So to get round that they are thinking of charging tax by the mile! After 3 years from new, your car has to go to a government registered garage to have a vehicle check. -brakes/ Steering/Suspension/Tyres/Windscreen wipers and washers/All Lights together with dipping check/seat belts/Air bags/Amount of rust/ damage.etc. Has to pass by law or not allowed to drive it. All checked electronically, so Police would know instantly, this has to be done yearly after that. Then there's the driving test, average total cost approx £2500!($3068)
Want to know why you don't have a proper rail system any more (cos you did) and also have a rubbish layout of towns (and not to mention) make crossing the road illegal - it the car lobby!
See the video channels "Not Just Bikes" and "Strong Towns"
The reason why an European can only stay in a another country from the EU with no paperwork 3 months only is because of taxes and residency, if You are willing to go from Spain to work and stay in The Netherlands You only need to go to the city hall and change your address, obviously you need to rent or buy a house, open a bank account.. even change your car plates if your are taking yours, you know, taxes, fines.. you pay them where you live.
Many many US cities throughout the country were created by the railroad. Its amazing how much as destroyed for roads and the car.
In the UK outside of large cities public transportation is not good.
It's expensive or nonexistent.
Buses hardly exist outside of towns.
Up untill 1986 all bus routes where controlled by local government
After 1986 they were deregulated and open to market forces The idea being the more buses would run with efficient private companies running the buses. The happened for a very short time but very soon only the routes making small profits were reduced. People came more reliant on cars. The viscous circle of more car and less buses took hold.
The only city not deregulated was London where they have the best service
Trains are now overcrowed and expensive the infrastructure can be over 150 years old and is not fit for purpose my train to Manchester a distance of 60 miles is now takes 20 longer than 39 years ago.
While the most of Europe has trains and buses that are controlled by governments the UKs experiment with private enterprise running trains and buses has be a complete disaster, leaving everywhere outside of London with a public transport system that's just dreadful and expensive
The strange thing is, is that all the people who designed the USA, came mostly from Europe.
Is the green line on the US train map a wagon train? 🤣
I visited five European countries this year (UK is in Europe, but not 🤨) and was impressed by the tube train (metro) systems in Vienna and Budapest. They were on par with London imho. Trams are widely used in Austrian, Hungarian and Slovakian cities. The roads never seemed to be clogged up. Swiss trains are also very good and reliable.
When I was growing up, we had what were known as trolley busses, which are basically an electric bus powered by overhead wires. We were quite progressive with clean travel back then.
The UK is in Europe, but NOT in The EU 🙄
Actually, you don't need ID card, because most of EU countries have no border checks and there is no limit of 3 months, but indefinitely! And you don't need work permit, just the usual documentation for anyone... Which is extensive :) ...
In europe and the UK we see roads as problems, we can never build enough they dont get cheeper and we dont realy need them all, lets get some smart people to design our roads and citys, not people after making it easyer for them to transport and sell their goods, cos most european citys were built this way, just with carts and trucks in mind.
The 60's wreined europe and the UK with all kinds of concrete mega buildings, towers, carparks etc, motorways, whole towns of concrete were built, monstrous.
then people complained and 30 years l8r we blew them all up, and built more stupid stuffs.
Europe and the UK. 🤡🤣
ride the rails, expensive in the UK and their high speed railroads just got canceled!
go for France, Italy and Spain....if you can cope with late trains, Germany!
If the US increased tax on fuel so it was more inline with Europe it would clear some of the national debt but anger a lot of people, although the US government would waste the extra tax revenue on projects other than public transport
Imagine if back in the fifties our government had instead of getting in bed with big business,had thought of our welfare and of our planets health. We wouldn’t look the the crap show we’ve become.
We are not "insanely well design", we have adapted and keep adapting insanely well. Our cities are from hundreds, thousands of years before "urban planning" was even a concept but we invested in change, in development, in future with people's wellbeing as the goal. Also, the European Union directives help in "unifying" to a certain point the development, the buildout of every country.
Americans had all the opportunities and knowledge to create a well designed country, with space for change because they had the experience of how fast times are changing and they just made their cities with cars in mind. No people, cars. America is all about individualism and capitalism which are the main enemies of public transportation, that's probably the essence of the issue.
01:27 Your do not taxes what suport and subisidyiy passanger lines = You have private companies who read money = More cargo trains and only 5-6 % passanger trains and that is only East coast - on west coast it is even worse . Same situation is by speed -bullet trains . 100 mph is not bullet train but exspress if You look Europan trains speeds ( speed average 250km/h ! ) . Dotasion of ticket for trainline company is 33 until 66 % . Domestatic ca at city unitl 300km is more 66 % pay at tax praier for You ticket price and over 500km ( 320 miles ) it is like 33 % cheaper that excpenses = tax prayer pay it again.
It's not that the US can't have a good railroad system, it's that you guys would, quite honestly, never use it, since your country and society is built around cars, whereas rail lines are just there for freight. It's a fact that probably won't change, even if you want it to. You have neighbourhoods that are car-centric. If you need a quick example, a good percentage of you live in cul-de-sacs or in single-residence homes out in god knows where, which you, for some reason, call the suburbs, which are 15 minutes away from the actual city. Most of you don't get to live within a 1,5 miles radius from a school, either, even on high density areas. Shopping is the same thing, where you drive for 15 minutes to get a shop. You drive for 30 minutes to get to a restaurant, or 10 minutes to get to a fast food joint. You guys simply don't, or rather, can't walk anywhere. It's your thing. It's your society and it's how you're used to living.
The way the US builds their cities make the construction of an efficient and usable passenger rail system an impossibility, but high speed rails in the US would probably work like a charm, if you could, somehow, make them competitive against the aviation industry. As for local or even regional lines within a state, just try it yourselves in your head or using google maps. Could you draw a line through your city that connected major interest points AND stayed within a 10-15 mins (I'll even allow you to use 20 min as the max value) walking distance from most residences in the vicinity without it turning into a wet noodle? I'm gonna go on a whim and say that most of you said no. At that point you're better served with buses, but even the existing services in high density areas like NY probably don't work properly unless you guys have your own bus lanes, and even then, with your grid pattern cities full of T-bone intersections, I'm incredibly skeptical of their efficiency.
Now, don't get it twisted, not everything is as fancy as it is portrayed. Public transport and services aren't amazing in the EU. We have flaws, too. We have unserviced areas, we have poor coverage in other areas and we have plenty of delays, too. Thing is, when you compare it to the US, it's practically impossible to find faults with it because yours is just... incredibly lacking, to put it mildly. It is what it is, nothing you can do about it.
The biggest mistake the USA has made in the past is not to rely on public transportation but to build up its country with roads and masses of cars. You can see the situation today, a very bad road condition, overcrowded roads with traffic jams without end, plus the massive car exhaust fumes.
Today you can see the mistakes that have been made and how progressive Europe is in this area, but the cost factor in the USA is likely to be very high to retrofit all this.
England is not insaide like the higspeed railway. Is not EU member